Ashley Griffin , University of Kentucky. Horses devote more time to eating than to any other behavioral activity. Behavior has direct effects on consumption patterns and the selection of feeds. Probably no other single factor is as important to the well-being and productivity of the horse as the feed and forage it consumes. Horses, like humans, need food and water to survive. The time a horse spends consuming feed is controlled by a number of factors. Grazing time depends primarily on:.
In times of limited feed or during periods of drought when feed is restricted, horses will eat when feed is present or can be found. When feed is abundantly available, horses will develop patterns of consumption behavior. These patterns are apparently influenced by learned behavior as the horse grows and develops. Most research indicates that the heaviest grazing occurs in the hours surrounding dawn and the late afternoon near sunset. Night grazing sometimes occurs and is observed more in the summer months.
Temperature can also alter grazing times. They wanted to see how much feed each grass type provided the yield , their nutritive value, and which types the horses preferred. The grasses included varieties of teff, sudangrass, sorghum sudangrass, and both Japanese and Siberian millet. The horses were allowed to graze freely among all the grass types for four-hour periods. Grazing was allowed when the grasses were young and again after the grasses had a chance to regrow.
Researchers carefully evaluated the grasses before and after grazing to find out what grasses the horses preferred. This sequence was repeated several times over the course of two summers. Sudangrass and sorghum-sudangrass showed the greatest yields and regrew the most after grazing. Siberian millet was the lowest yielding grass. Horses most preferred the annual cool-season ryegrass, but among the warm-season grasses, they highly preferred teff and sudangrass.
All of the grasses were found to supply adequate nutrition for horses. Most also had high nitrate levels, which can be toxic to horses. The study showed that some annual warm-season grasses may be helpful as emergency forages if perennial pastures have been damaged. This method of eating is the basis on which their digestive tract has evolved. It sounds as though your horses are in at night without access to food for about 13 hours.
Certainly, by the early hours of the morning most of the pasture consumed during their previous turnout will have left their stomachs. A stomach with little to no food in it is less able to buffer stomach acid than a full one, and it lacks the well-developed forage barrier that otherwise floats on the stomach acid, helping to reduce the amount of acid that splashes upwards into the unprotected squamous tissue the esophageal region, or squamous mucosa, covers approximately one-third of the equine stomach.
Another point to consider: Horses that are turned out after a period of no pasture access might consume more grass in the initial hours post-turnout than they normally would. This could result in a couple of scenarios. Second it might mean that, having gorged in the morning, they consume grass at a slower rate as the day goes on. If this were the case, they might, in fact, have less forage in their stomach when you bring them in than you might think, such that they are in fact standing without food for longer than 13 hours.
This is often a challenge, but this is where slow feeders are so valuable—they allow small amounts of forage to last far longer than when the same amount of hay is fed loose.
Feeding a small slow-feeder-net of hay at night when you bring them in would reduce the number of hours standing without food. I am not sure of the reason you bring the horses in at night, but another possible option would be to leave them out 24 hours a day and put grazing muzzles on them at night. This would allow them to continue to consume a small amount of pasture over night and has the benefits of increased movement, which is good for both maintaining weight and promoting a healthy digestive tract.
As a nutritionist she works with all equids, from WEG competitors to Miniature donkeys and everything in between. Growing up, she competed in a wide array of disciplines and was an active member of the U. Pony Club. Today, she serves as the district commissioner for the Salt River Pony Club.
We bring our horses in at night as well. In the winter they go out at the same time, but they come in a lot earlier…around PM. In our area we have a LOT of coyotes, bob cat and even an occasional mountain lion passing through.
No way are we leaving our horses vulnerable to attack at night. Instead they get hay, plenty of water and a soft bed of shavings. All seem pretty content! They are in a barnyard with their stalls and we hay at night. But the last few nights, they havent been eating their hay. Could it be they are just full?
They ate their oates.
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